As many computer systems are evolving towards providing entertainment, particularly in mobile and home computer systems, there is an increased need to have computing devices take on attributes more like consumer electronics devices. While originally it was generally nice to have a computer system that can also function similarly to a consumer electronics device such as a DVD player, such similar behavior is becoming standard or a requirement in order to sell computing products in the competitive computer and consumer electronics marketplace. One example requirement is a quick power-on experience. Another example requirement is extending some elements of autonomy, reliability or protection, e.g., a user's game playing should not degrade or crash the appliance-like features of digital video recording.
In conflict with these specialized requirements, to have practical value, a general purpose operating system cannot be very limited. For example, Microsoft Windows® is a platform designed for open and flexible implementations, enabling computer manufacturers, software developers and even users to adapt and implement personal computers in various different usage models, without requiring a specialized operating system for each model. Microsoft Windows® is therefore a very elaborate platform that accommodates a very broad base of capabilities, even though specialized solutions often only use a small fraction of the general-purpose Windows® platform resources that are available. While this platform extensibility is highly valuable in that it ensures flexibility and reduces development overhead, it does require that the platform initialize hardware and prepare to accommodate this very broad base of capabilities, and that many system resources of the operating system be loaded upon boot or be part of the footprint.
Booting a robust (or comprehensive) general purpose operating system can be time consuming, generally taking between fifteen and thirty seconds. This boot delay may be considered acceptable in typical computing environments, but for single-purpose device usage, or consumer electronics feature parity, this delay is unacceptable to customers. Moreover, running everything through a general purpose operating system means that one service or component can crash the system, adversely impacting another service, subsystem or user's usage.